A road in Skellingthorpe has seen the deaths of three cats and a dog in recent years, according to one resident – but Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership says no measures will be taken.
Saxilby Road in Skellingthorpe has a 60mph speed limit, but runs alongside four houses, some with young children and pets.
In March, a young cat named Mitch was killed after being hit by a car on the road. He was found in the early morning on a neighbour’s driveway, having dragged himself there following the incident.
Tammy Faulkner, the cat’s owner, said she was devastated. To make matters worse, Mitch isn’t the first cat she’s lost on Saxilby Road.
“I didn’t tell my youngest daughter that he had died for a while. I just couldn’t face it. She misses him every day but she is coming to terms with the loss,” said Ms Faulkner. “He was such a playful cat. He used to claw you to bits by accident, then he would lay his head and relax on you. I miss him.”
While the death of her pets is upsetting for Ms Faulkner, she’s particularly worried about her daughter’s safety.
She said: “What is really worrying is that my daughter gets on a school bus right outside the house and we don’t have any footpaths or pavements. The end of my drive is straight onto the road.
“The school used to send a minibus that would collect her from my drive. However, then the school changed to a double-decker bus that can’t do that anymore.
“Now, she has to cross this 60mph road. As she gets off the bus, cars zoom past, overtaking the bus with no understanding of why it has stopped there. I am worried my daughter is going to get killed or injured on this road.”
Ms Faulkner reported her concerns about the road’s safety – and the loss of several pets – to Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership, but received no resolution.
“I got told that if there were a few serious incidents on the road, then they will monitor it – but these serious incidents have to involve people,” she said. “So, I basically got told that until a person got injured or killed, they wouldn’t even monitor. Animal fatality has no bearing on this whatsoever. My neighbour lost a cat and he phoned the council; he got told the same as I did.”
John Siddle, a spokesperson for Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership, said: “We do not measure pet or animal deaths on our roads, as our focus is human life and although there may be a perceived risk because there is no pavement, some roads deliberately have no pavement to discourage people walking on high-speed unlit roads.
He added that there are “clear Highway Code rules for parents to get their children safely across roads”. As for pets, Mr Siddle said the onus is on the pet owners to keep their pets safe.
“There is wildlife that crosses the road too, so where do we draw the line in what we are to record as an animal death – or do we just record pet deaths?
“From an administration point of view, how would we accurately record all those deaths and if, say, a cat runs out in front of a car and is killed, what can we do about it? What action plan can be put in place to prevent it happening again and who would pay for all this work and database, which would actually not make any reductions in pet deaths?”
For Ms Faulkner, it seems unfair that other houses are given more protection from the road: “We are a block of four houses, but about half a mile down the road, there is another block of houses. Although there are ten, they have footpaths and it’s a 40mph road.”
At the moment, there is no law that states you have to report hitting a cat to the police. However, you do have to report a dog, as this animal falls under the Road Traffic Act 1988.